Rorschach (character)

Rorschach
Rorschach (front) and the other characters of Watchmen
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Watchmen #1 (1986)
Created by	Alan Moore (story) and Dave Gibbons (art), based on The Question created by Steve Ditko
In-story information
Alter ego	Walter Joseph Kovacs
Team affiliations	Crimebusters, Nite-Owl (II)
Abilities	None

Rorschach is a fictional character in the comic book series, Watchmen, written by Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons and published by DC Comics. The character was derived from The Question, created by Steve Ditko.

Character history

His real name is Walter Joseph Kovacs, born March 21, 1940. His mother, a prostitute who resented his interference in her business, abused him viciously. At age 10, he was cruelly abused by two bullies and attacked them, partially blinding one with a lit cigarette, and became a ward of the state, sent to the Lillian Charlton Home for Problem Children. In high school, he excelled in religious education and literature, as well as in boxing and gymnastics, and also wrote an essay in which he praised President Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, asserting that the bombs helped save lives by stopping the war.

During those high school years at age 15, Walter was informed of his mother's gruesome murder; her pimp force-fed her a bottle of Drāno until she died in agony. Walter's only reaction consisted of the single word: "Good."

Reaching maturity, in 1956 at age 16 he found work as an unskilled garment worker; noting in his journal "Job bearable but unpleasant. Had to handle female clothing". Working in this capacity, in 1962 he grew fascinated by a new fabric made possible through technologies developed by Doctor Manhattan, containing viscous fluids between two layers of latex. Two liquids, one black and one white, continually shifted in response to heat and pressure, forming symmetrical patterns like a Rorschach test while never mixing to produce a grey colour. Kovacs learned of the fabric when a young woman chose not to buy a dress which she had ordered made from it; subsequently Kovacs took the dress home and experimented with the fabric. He learned to cut the fabric and maintain the seal using heated scissors.

Two years later, when Kitty Genovese (both in real life and in Watchmen) was brutally murdered in front of a building full of tenants who didn't bother to help her, Kovacs decided that she had been the woman who had ordered the dress ("Young. Pretty. Italian name. I'm sure it was her"). Kovacs cut up the dress, making it into a mask and becoming Rorschach to avenge the powerless victims of crime.

Eventually, in 1965 he teamed up with another superhero, Nite-Owl (II), whose technical skills and resources complemented his skills as an investigator.

In 1975, Rorschach was searching for a kidnapped child and found her captor's vacant hideout. A cursory inspection revealed, to his horror, that the girl had been murdered, butchered, and fed to two German Shepherd dogs. In the face of this atrocity, Kovacs' mind snapped and assumed the mental identity of Rorschach as a separate personality. He killed the dogs with a meat cleaver and waited for the kidnapper. When the man returned, he wordlessly chained him to a pipe, ignoring his claims of innocence (the man tells to Rorschach: "you can't prove anything, there's no evidence", which indicates he fed the girl to the dogs to get rid of the 'evidence'), then placed a hacksaw near him and set the house on fire. Finally speaking, he told the terrified man that he would not have time to cut through his restraints before the fire killed him (implying that he would have to sever his own arm to escape). Kovacs calmly watched the structure burn from across the street; the suspected kidnapper did not emerge. In a much-later interview with a psychologist, Kovacs explicitly mentions the incident as the point after which he became "Rorschach, who sometimes pretends to be Kovacs"; before that, he claims, he was only "Kovacs pretending to be Rorschach."

After the Keene Act passed in 1977 (outlawing costumed vigilantes) demanded his retirement, he grew even more violent, murdering notorious multiple rapist Harvey Charles Furniss and leaving his corpse in front of a police station; a note pinned to his chest read, "Never!" True to his word, Rorschach remained an active "adventurer" in open defiance of the Act.

Events of Watchmen

During a mid-1980s murder investigation of a man named Eddie Blake, Rorschach discovered that the victim was the alter ego of The Comedian, an amoral government-sponsored "costumed adventurer" and former colleague. Suspecting a plot to eliminate superheroes, he pursued the investigation accordingly, interviewing and warning several former members of the hero community. Although no one took his theory seriously, the sudden public denunciations and subsequent self-exile of Doctor Manhattan and the attempted murder of Adrian Veidt (the former Ozymandias) bolstered his confidence that he was on the right track. Before long, however, he was framed for the murder of Moloch, an ailing former adversary, and was arrested (though he fought to the bitter end, lighting one cop on fire with an aerosol can and shattering another's sternum with a gas-propelled grappling hook gun that Nite Owl 2 built for him)

In prison Kovacs was examined by a clinical psychologist, and subject to numerous death threats and attacks by vengeful prisoners. A former organized crime head called The Big Figure orchestrated a prisoner riot as a distraction while his flunkies attacked Kovacs. He easily, almost leisurely, dispatched the would-be assassins before drowning The Big Figure (a diminuitive old man) in a toilet. Immediately after this incident, he was freed by Nite-Owl (II) and Silk Spectre (II), who sought his help in their own investigation.

Investigating jointly, Nite Owl and Rorschach learned that the mastermind behind the plot was Adrian Veidt, who had been hailed as the smartest person in the world. Rorschach and Nite Owl traveled to his home in Antarctica to confront him; however, they were unable to prevent him from accomplishing his ultimate goal. Before the duo arrived, Veidt teleported an enormous Lovecraftian "alien" that he had manufactured into the heart of New York City, killing millions and psychically traumatizing millions more. Exactly as Veidt had predicted, the hoax united the world against the perceived alien threat and thereby avoided a brewing nuclear showdown.

Shortly after Veidt confesses his plot to Nite Owl and Rorschach, they are joined by Doctor Manhattan and the Silk Spectre. After a brief struggle, the adventurers realize that by exposing Veidt's act they would only manage to return the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. The other heroes agree that they must keep the hoax a secret, but Rorschach flatly refuses to comply ("No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise."). Manhattan attempts to persuade him, but Rorschach maintains his defiance. In tears, he demands that Manhattan kill him; wordlessly, Manhattan complies.

However, Rorschach's legacy may have greater consequences; prior to departing for Antarctica, he wrote a lengthy journal detailing his investigation and sent it to a reactionary fringe newspaper. Whether or not the journal's contents would be printed, or whether it would be taken seriously by the public since his mental illness is well known, was left as an open question at the very last page of the Watchmen comics series.

Analysis

Rorschach is an extreme example of moral absolutism, who believes in an unalterable moral code that requires the strict and severe punishment of any infraction. His opposition to the evil of crime is contrasted with his total lack of empathy for criminals, whom he treats as non-human, and his disdain for conventional morality, law, government, and the police, being willing to torture or execute criminals in the pursuit of his aims. Rorschach is thus himself strangely inhuman and not entirely "good". His view of the world is in "black and white". There are no shades of gray - thus reflecting the properties of the mask that he wears.